EN: Good Morning everyone! It seems as if spring is finally waking up from her deep sleep and it’s time to store away all the dark winter clothes and break out all the colorful spring garments!!! YIPPIE!!!! I’m so glad the dark gloomy weather is nearly over, this must have been the longest winter ever (I’m pretty sure I will be saying that again next year…) But before I start making plans for all the things I’d like to make in the warmer months, I thought I write a summary of all the things I made in the first quarter of 2018, so without further ado:

EN: I sewed 25 garments from January until March which is a record, even for me. That being said, I did sew 5 Nikko Tops by True Bias. I finally managed to tame my very temperamental serger, which has made sewing with jersey SO MUCH EASIER! The Nikko top takes about an hour to cut out and sew which is why I batch sewed a bunch of them, they also are great layering pieces and I really can only recommend the pattern. I also sewed up two sets of Summer Pjs consisting of an Ogden Cami by True Bias and the Lexi Chic Boxers, these Pjs also took about an hour per item, which was very satisfying.

EN: I also sewed 2 blouses for the office and sewed 4 dresses, my favorite continues to be the Charlotte Dress by Sew Over It (BTW, I’ve already downloaded the new Lea dress and plan to make it up in white crepe!!) I’m also really excited about Lisa’s new range of cardigans and don’t get me started on her new fabric line (I WANT THEM ALL!!) which brings me to my fabric statistics….

EN: Soooo…. Remember all the great plans and Goals I had?… they are all lying ruined and burned in a ditch! I shall start with telling you, that I managed to sew up 53,2 meters of fabric from my stash in the first quarter of 2018, which is actually not bad at all… HOWEVER…. I bought 59,8 meters of fabric… YIKES!!! After looking at my spread sheet and calculating what I spent on that amount of fabric, I felt rather ill. I’m glad that I chose to start keeping a record of the amount of fabric that I am buying and what I am spending on it, to hold myself more accountable. But the truth of the matter is, that I CANNOT go on like this and really Need to do A LOT better in the next quarter…

EN: So what did I learn in the first quarter of 2018? Jersey is your friend!!! Now that my Serger is purring like a kitten again, I shall be making more jersey garments, as they are quick to make up and fun to wear! I also purchased the new book from Tilly “Stretch!” and am hoping to give a few of the patterns a go. When it comes to sewing, I’m rather egoistical which is why I have chosen to participate in the “selfless sewing month” hosted by Sew Over It in April. There are a few people in my life who I’d like to make a few things for. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! Was was your first Sewing-Quarter?

10 thoughts on “Geschichten übers erste Näh-Quartal 2018 – Tales of the first Sewing-Quarter of 2018”

Wow! That’s some pretty impressive progress for just 3 months! I’d love to know more about your spreadsheet–how is it set up? I’d like to do something like this, but not sure where to start for something that would actually be useful. So many of my spreadsheets end up being awkward to use…so I don’t use them. 😦

Thank you so much! When I put the post together I couldn’t believe that I managed to get so much done. As for my spreadsheet, I put all my finished projects, WIPs and fails on the first page of the file and color cordinate them. I build sums for the Colours e.g. green for everything I finish, yellow for wips and red for fails. That way I alway keep track of all my current projects and know what I have finished. I then made a seperate sheet in the same file for every month of the year in which I put down every project I start and colour cordinate them the same way I did the first sheet, I also write down the amount of fabric I use for the project and dot every Piece of fabric I buy in that month (yardage +type+Price). That way i can Keep track of what I sew up and what goes into my stash. I hope that wasn’t too complicated, I can always write a seperate post, if you’d prefer that? xB

That’s a lot of sewing to get done in three months! I’ll tell you how much I got done in the first quarter, just one Style Arc Nina cardigan oh dear… I started a new job in January and on average I only sew 9 or 10 garments per year but still. Do you have any tips for being more productive sewing wise? I think my problem is only sewing on the weekends when I’ve got a stretch of time ahead of me, I should try to sew in the evenings as well (I love sitting behind my machine so it’s rather silly that I don’t make time for it during the week)

Hello Anne-Rose,
Thank you for stopping by! 😃
I have a tricks, that you can try, I cut out a number of different patterns during the week, after work, that wayI have a choice of different projects I can tackle, when the mood strikes. I pin pieces together on a different night, while watching TV or listening to a podcast and put the pinned pieces into piles that need the same colour thread, to be sewn up. When I do manage to squeeze in an hour during the week ( this happens very seldom 😔)I batch sew all the pieces together that need the same colour thread! That way you can easily start 2-3 projects simultaneously 😜 I get the most sewing time over the weekend and when you‘ve already started a few projects, finishing them goes much quicker than you‘d think. I hope this helps. Happy sewing, xB